{"id":656557,"date":"2026-08-26T00:32:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T00:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/656557\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T00:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T00:32:18","slug":"oneill-stunned-after-one-of-his-worst-nights-at-celtic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/656557\/","title":{"rendered":"O’Neill stunned after one of his worst nights at Celtic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Celtic manager Martin O’Neill admitted Tuesday’s defeat to LASK ranked as one of his most painful nights at the club as their Champions League hopes went up in smoke during a disastrous second leg in Austria.<\/p>\n

Callum McGregor put his team 4-0 up on aggregate in the play-off when he struck from 18 yards in the 21st minute, but they went on to lose 5-1 on the night after extra-time<\/a> (5-4 on aggregate).<\/p>\n

Defeat sends Celtic into the Europa League and delivers a damaging financial blow that will cost the club at least \u00a320m.<\/p>\n

“I would say absolutely, yes,” O’Neill said when asked if it was one of his worst experiences in the dugout.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019d put it down before the disappointment of losing the UEFA Cup final in 2003, but it\u2019s so, so disappointing.<\/p>\n

“We should have been out of sight by half-time. We scored a goal, which was great, we missed two great, great opportunities. And then we give them a lifeline just before half-time and then one just after it. And they come roaring back.<\/p>\n

“And obviously we conceded, from our viewpoint, not good goals at all. But that\u2019s my team and that\u2019s my responsibility.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m disappointed that we\u2019ve conceded the goals in the manner which we did.”<\/p>\n

When asked whether his squad was strong enough, O\u2019Neill said: “These are tough games. And it might only be a Champions League qualifying game, but it felt like a Champions League game. I thought they were a fine side.<\/p>\n

“But that doesn\u2019t matter. We should have been able to have seen it through. And we didn\u2019t do. Talking about the squad, that\u2019s for another day.”<\/p>\n

\"The
\nLASK players celebrate with their supporters at full-time<\/p>\n

Celtic captain McGregor accepted there were no excuses for the players.<\/p>\n

“We got what we deserved,” McGregor told Amazon Prime. “I thought we were so passive. All night. We actually looked scared to go and win the game, and when you are 3-0 up it’s psychological.<\/p>\n

“To be honest I didn\u2019t think we were that good in the first leg either. We scored at good times and kind of got away with it. You go 3-0 and you think you\u2019ve got a real chance but when you play like that you can\u2019t have any excuse whatsoever.<\/p>\n

“We have to suck it up, apologise to the supporters and the club because there is no way that we should lose that game.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve got to stick together, we\u2019ve got to suck it up, and now you\u2019ll see what kind of characters are in there.”<\/p>\n

McGregor admitted there was a “nervousness” about Celtic due to what was at stake but the 33-year-old added: “When you play like that and you\u2019re so passive and you go 1-0 up in the game and it still doesn\u2019t settle you, then you can\u2019t have any excuse, and that\u2019s on us.”<\/p>\n

Defeat is the latest in a string of Champions League qualifying failures and Celtic\u2019s slow start to the transfer window will again come under scrutiny.<\/p>\n

When asked if it could be levelled that the squad was not ready or strong enough this time, McGregor paused and said: “I guess not, no. Everyone\u2019s happy for two or three weeks and then you fall at a big hurdle, these questions are going to get asked.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s as much on the players as anything else to be honest. You can\u2019t lose that game by such a big margin and then start looking for excuses elsewhere. We have to accept that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celtic manager Martin O’Neill admitted Tuesday’s defeat to LASK ranked as one of his most painful nights at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-656557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117158999210464831","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}